


Mud Puddles

by SylverLining



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 01:36:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylverLining/pseuds/SylverLining
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ereba tells her daughter about Charr, the poet who died so the Blue Rose of Illium could live and grow, happy and safe in a sunlit garden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mud Puddles

When she comes home with scrapes on her hands and knees and bruises from words like sticks and stones, Ereba turns her frowny-face to look up; a finger under her chin and a tap on the nose and soon she's smiling because mommy you should see the other girls, there was a mud puddle and it was an accident really but now they'll never bother me again. Her little-girl face lights up with a wide, tooth-missing smile and Ereba's hugging her daughter while she giggles, and she can't help but wonder how she got so strong.

She's just barely getting old enough to ask the big questions that keep Ereba awake at night, and she waits patiently while her mother catches her breath and tries to put the words in order.

"He was... warm. The warmest kr- the warmest _person_ I'd ever met. And sweet. And sensitive - when he started writing me love poetry, that's when I knew I had someone special.

"A lot of people in this galaxy just... run around making noise, fighting or making money or - doing other things. But he just liked to sit with me, and think. He loved laying down with his head in my lap, looking up at the sun coming through the trees, and we'd talk for hours.

"And _you_... He _loved_ you."

"But he never met me."

"Sure he did! You were just still inside me, that's all. And he wanted to meet you better, so much. He talked to you all the time."

Ereba wonders if that's why she loves the low, constant droning of engines, if it reminds her of a calming, rumbling voice. No words, no specifics, just a vibration that forms the backdrop of her memory.

"Then why'd he go?"

"Because... sometimes, the galaxy is a scary place. And bad things happen to good people. Your daddy left home to protect us, because he was a good person. And make sure we were safe from things that wanted to hurt us."

"He pushed them in mud puddles too?"

For a moment Ereba closes her eyes, remembering words about caves and webs and fire in the dark, insects and monsters. She has every word of that recording memorized, that very last poem, and the cold, sinking feeling in her stomach is just as strong and nauseating as that day years ago.

No, she wants to say, sometimes there really are monsters under the bed, and you can't tell them to go away, or fight them, or push them in a puddle. But sometimes people still try when they love someone more than they fear death. Sometimes the best people die underground, alone and in agony, not knowing if they really made a difference, or if their words will ever reach the ones they love, or if any of it all mattered.

"Something like that," she says at last. Someday she'll play that recording, show this girl exactly how loved she was and is and will be, remind her that she's a blue flower growing from a mud puddle, safe in a garden lit by a warm and gentle sun.


End file.
